Worldstream Releases Software-Defined Network with MSP Deltics as Launching Partner

The development of the Worldstream Elastic Network (WEN) took Worldstream’s R&D engineering team more than a year. WEN is a software-defined network (SDN) using EVPN VXLAN technology. This SDN is built on top of Worldstream’s global network backbone with ample bandwidth capacity.

The backup & disaster recovery solutions launched by Deltics and based on the Worldstream Elastic Network constitute an initial selection of the new proposition options which MSP Deltics has identified by using Worldstream’s SDN platform.

Consumer-Based IT

“Based on WEN we can now install a plug & play failover data center location. In data centers where the underlying Worldstream network backbone has a network PoP,” says Rob Bultman, Commercial Director at Deltics. “Setting up such a backup & disaster recovery solution has suddenly become very easy. It offers us cloud-oriented flexibility, which is in line with the consumer-based IT needs of our customers. In the areas of security, latency and performance, the use of Worldstream’s SDN also offers considerable added value for our customers - against a cost reduction of about 50 per cent.”

“Previously, we had to install a separate network feed for disaster recovery data center locations,” says Bultman. “Underneath, the feed then consisted of 5 to 6 network providers, which often made it fairly complex and not entirely transparent. A lot of things also had to be arranged technically first, which usually took quite a lot of engineering time. In addition, in terms of performance, there weren’t any guarantees unless you’re willing to pay a lot of money for deploying your own fibers.”

Applications: Hybrid IT, IoT, Edge Computing

As an SDN, the Worldstream Elastic Network offers managed services provider Deltics the possibility to expand their portfolio with ‘on-demand’ products. The first ‘as-a-service’ products launched by Deltics through this SDN include solutions for backup & disaster recovery, but much more is possible. You may think of for example the ‘on-demand’ (and pay-per-use) offering of bare metal hardware, hypervisors, VM’s, cloud instances, twin and multi-data center setups, as well as cybersecurity solutions. Solutions such as these can be deployed in data centers where the underlying backbone has a network Point-of-Presence (PoP), in the Netherlands and worldwide.

Functionality can be dynamically interconnected through the Worldstream Elastic Network. The SDN solution also provides cloud entry points with secured connections to popular cloud providers, while workloads can be migrated live between data centers. This makes the software-defined network suitable for today’s applications such as hybrid IT, IoT (Internet of Things) and edge computing.

Standardization, Bandwidth and Latency

Transparency and standardization for the underlying infrastructure as well as service scalability are important for ‘as-a-service’ IT solutions, stated Deltics.

“In the front-end, all we do for customers must be truly unique while in the back-end it must be technically possible to deploy things the same way every time,” says Bultman. “Next to that, it should be possible to apply performance warrantees to these services. With WEN we can do it all. The bandwidth and latency values are guaranteed thanks to private connections. The response times are fixed. The SLAs are fixed. It allows us to easily market on-demand solutions against monthly fees. Backup & disaster recovery is the first solution we now offer based on WEN. In this particular case we use WEN to transfer the data to Worldstream’s flagship data center in Naaldwijk in the extension of a client’s Local Area Network. The customer doesn’t notice any of this. It could also involve another data center though where a physical Worldstream network PoP is present.”

“Using EVPN VXLAN technology, the unique software-defined architecture developed by our R&D team actually adds an elastic layer to Worldstream’s global network backbone,” says Tim Vollebregt, Director Network & Cloud Services at Worldstream. “It gives our customers full direction and control over the data center, network and cybersecurity features which they can offer as-a-service in the Netherlands and globally. Crucial to the flawless operation of the backup & disaster recovery solution now being offered by Deltics is the SDN controller that our engineering team has developed. In fact, it’s the ‘brain’ of our software-defined network.”